I write about things that make me happy : food, travel and home. It's where my heart is...

Friday, September 5, 2014

Review : The Nation's Favourite Food FAST! by Neven Maguire

Pressure. We're all under it and the one thing we consistently lack is time. That means that we need to clever about how we eat well without resorting to ready meals or fast food. This is where Neven Maguire comes in. Subtitled "100 best-loved recipes for busy lives", this is his tenth (I think, I'm rubbish at maths though...) cookery book. Neven is familiar to many of us from his TV show Home Cook on RTE and is also the chef/owner of MacNean House in Blacklion, Co. Cavan. With a family of his own to feed, he's had to revise his way of eating and The Nation's Favourite Food FAST! is a great solution.

The books deviates from the traditional flow of recipe books, with neat little sections each containing five recipes to suit all palates. Soups go from Carrot and Cumin to Spinach and Watercress with some interesting combinations inbetween. Starters include a smoked Duck salad with Strawberry dressing and a Lobster and Mango cocktail. Salads are light years away from limp lettuce and salad cream. After these three sections, recipes are categorised by the principal ingredient : Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Pork, Fish, Eggs, Veggie and some very interesting Takeaway My Way ideas, Dinner Party inspiration and Leftovers recipes.

It sounds a little overwhelming, but it's not. Neven writes his recipes in a very clear and easy to follow manner, so they won't frighten novice cooks. The variety in each section means that there's something to suit everybody and the photos are beautifully styled (by the dream team of Orla Broderick and Sharon Hearne-Smith). I have one little gripe and that's purely because there's not a photo of every finished recipe. Iwould have really liked to see the finished Beef & Onion Pie with Souffle Crouton Topping as it's something very few people would be familiar with and I'm sure the end result looked fabulous.

About Me

Babaduck started life in 2010 to show one friend (Mrs. T) what to make for dinner, step by step and it's grown ever since.
I love writing about all aspects of food and drink, including creating simple easy to follow recipes with lots of photos, restaurant and product reviews, lots of food news and as much travel as I can cram in. I'm a self-confessed Francophile and love almost everything about la belle France, especially the wine. The Hubs is my beloved other half who taste tests all the recipes on your behalf and keeps me on an even keel.
So where did the name come from? The Hubs inspired the name - he calls me Baba & his friends call him The Duck. Simples.

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